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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



us too late to be noticed in our last issue. It is 

 edited by Professor I. B. Balfour, F. R.S., Dr. 

 S. H. Vines, F.R.S., and Professor W. G. Farlow, 

 and these eminent botanists are assisted in their 

 comprehensive work by other botanists. The part 

 extends to eighty-eight pages of original botanical 

 articles, notes, and reviews, and forty-two pages of a 

 "Record of Current Literature" of botany. The 

 illustrations and printing are of a high order, for the 

 work is turned out by the Clarendon Press. The 

 original papers are as follows : " On Some Points in 

 the Histology and Physiology of the Fruits and 

 Seeds of Rhamnus," by II. Marshall Ward and John 

 Dunlop ; " On the Structure of the Mucilage-se- 

 creting Cells of Blecknum occidentale and Osmunda 

 regalis" by W. Gardiner and Ito Tokutaro ; "On 

 Laticiferous Tissue in the Pith of Manihot Glaziovii, 

 &c," by Agnes Calvert and L. A. Boodle ; and on 

 "Anomalous Thickening in the Roots of Cycas 

 Seemanni" by W. H. Gregg. The new "Annals" 

 will be a most invaluable work to all botanists, but 

 the price (Ss. 6d.) per part is rather high. 



GEOLOGY, &c. 



The Upper Cretaceous Beds. — Among the 

 numerous papers indicating zeal, hard work, and the 

 perseverance of pioneers, we cordially recommend 

 the paper published in the Q. J. Geol. Soc. for 

 August last, "On the Lower Part of the Upper 

 Cretaceous Series in West Suffolk and Norfolk," by 

 A. J. Jukes-Brown, F.G.S., and Mr. W. Hill, F.G.S., 

 of Hitchin, Mr. Hill having done the lion's share. 



" Terminal Moraines of the Great Glaciers 

 of England." — At the recent meeting of the British 

 Association, Professor Carvill Lewis said, the in- 

 vestigations he had made were based upon the 

 important principle, that every glacier at the time of 

 its greatest extension was bounded and limited by a 

 terminal moraine. He had studied supposed ex- 

 ceptions to that law in Switzerland and elsewhere, 

 and found to be contrary to observed facts. Thus 

 the ancient Rhone glacier, stated by Swiss geologists 

 to be without a limited moraine at the time of its 

 greatest extension, was found to have one as distinct 

 as those of the Aare glacier, the Reuss glacier, or the 

 Rhine glacier; and the prevalent idea of a "first 

 glacial epoch," in which the glaciers had no terminal 

 moraines was also unsupported by his observations. 

 He described the various glaciers to be found in 

 England, and concluded by stating the course of the 

 Irish Sea glacier, In the neighbourhood of Man- 

 chester the great moraine of this glacier might be 

 followed through Bacup, Hey, Stalybridge, Stock- 

 port, and Macclesfield, being as finely developed as 

 the moraines of Switzerland and America. South of 

 Manchester it contained flints and shell fragments, 



brought by the glacier from the sea bottom over 

 which it passed. At Manchester the ice was at least 

 1400 feet thick, being as thick as the Rhone glacier. 

 The great terminal moraine was a very sinuous line, 

 550 miles in length, extending from the mouth of the 

 Humber to the farthest extremity of Carnarvonshire, 

 and, except where it separates the Welsh glaciers from 

 the North Sea glacier, everywhere marked the 

 extreme limit of glaciation in England, and was an 

 important feature which might well hereafter be 

 marked on the geological map of England. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Rudiments and Vestiges. — In an article in 

 your last issue, by Nina F. Layard on " Rudiments 

 and Vestiges," there are some statements so totally at 

 variance with my ideas, that I cannot refrain from 

 saying a few words on the other side. In the first 

 place, it is said that to use the term rudimentary, 

 " in the sense in which it is repeatedly to be found in 

 the ' Descent of Man,' is a strange contradiction of 

 the theory of development." This shows what 

 result you may arrive at, by reading a book with a 

 preconceived idea of its teaching. It is true Darwin 

 used the word rudimentary, where many able ana- 

 tomists and naturalists would now use vestigial, but 

 knowing this, and understanding the double meaning 

 of the word, viz. vestiges of structures existing in 

 early types, and foreshadowings or beginnings of 

 structures in process of development, it is difficult to 

 understand how any one can affirm that it is a contra- 

 diction of the theory of evolution. The organs which 

 constitute our present conception of an ideal human 

 form, may be termed rudimentary in both senses of 

 the word : 1st, because either in obeying the unknown 

 laws of variation, or in adapting themselves to circum- 

 stances, they still retain vestiges of a primitive form ; 

 2nd, because as progression has been the order of the 

 past, so it may be of the future, and perfect as all our 

 organs are at the present time, we have no reason for 

 supposing that evolution has reached a limit. Of all 

 our organs which we have handed down to us from 

 remote ancestors, some have been developed to meet 

 our requirements, as the brain, others falling into dis- 

 use have become partially degenerate. It is only when 

 a sense is necessary to the existence of the organism 

 that it reaches its maximum development, consequently 

 we possess only in a minor degree the nychtating mem- 

 brane, the acute sense of smell, and the prominent ears 

 of lower animals ; while, in their place, we have in- 

 creased intellectual and moral power. It is to be hoped 

 there are not many readers of Mr. Darwin's volume 

 who can extract from it such erroneous inferences. 

 Our human form instead of being "a bundle of 

 rudimentary organs," is, it is true, composed of 

 organs leaving traces of their primitive origin, but now 

 perfectly developed to meet the wants of an intellectual 

 being. I would ask Miss Layard if an organ is im- 

 perfect, because it has its life history stamped on it. 

 Is the cultivated rose an imperfect flower because the 

 botanist can trace back to the wild form from which 

 it has been produced ? Is the masterpiece of a 

 painter imperfect because we can trace in his style 

 the school which has educated and produced him ? 

 Perfection is a term of the day, for the time it is 

 perfect, but who shall say how soon it may be sur- 

 passed and superseded ? Miss Layard would take 



